


O.Killed

by Radiolaria



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alarming physics, Angst, F/M, Introspection, Not Beta Read, Post Episode: s07e05 The Angels Take Manhattan, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-16
Updated: 2013-04-16
Packaged: 2017-12-08 17:02:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/763840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiolaria/pseuds/Radiolaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An underground explosion that caused the largest dam in Florana to fissure and threaten the tranquil holiday-makers building sandcastles.<br/>Where else would they take a vacation?</p>
            </blockquote>





	O.Killed

**Situation Normal: All Fucked Up**

 

It had been decided at first as a time off; it was meant to be a recess from each-other's constant proximity.

For weeks, they lived between the breaths they forgot to catch in one another presence.  

The Doctor would wallow in a comfortable suspension of judgments, filled with little mindless tasks, seeking her when his own silence sunk too deep, too low in his hearts.

River would watch and guard him, and furtively, stealthily, in a secluded corner of the ship, after an endless careful dragging of her body down the corridor, she would collide into a wall. Waiting for the metal to gulp her whole, bones and sorrows regardless. She needed fixing, being stalled, when everything seemed wobbly and failing around. Including him.

She needed him still, for once.

He needed to move on, away from the Ponds, when she felt she could only take solace in his silence and immobility.

Their grievings were too dissimilar. One of them had to give in and rove a little longer away from the living, waiting for a chance, later, to piece back, alone, her drifting hearts.

_Alone and later._

He did step forward nevertheless, took her hands, asked about her parents, tried. But everything was moving, too fast, around them, inside them. He flailed for a while, then stilled. And the immobility was for him worse than the mourning. She knew him too well. He didn’t know her anymore. It was not his River, not his TARDIS. Just strange flickering presences on the edge of his mind, pulling and swashing, like being saved from drowning by a deliquescent body.

He could not grasp her.

They had talked a lot during those few days after Manhattan. It had been unusual, this flow of words coming from their mouths, like gore pouring, still clinging to the wound, sincere but so vain. It was an endless recalling of Amy and Rory, the Ponds and their joys and journeys. And round and round, the Ponds tales became a continuous lilt around the rotor, behind closed doors, across the vast Pondless rooms of the TARDIS.

A labyrinth of words and stories woven by them to get lost and never resurface.

After a while they gave up and agreed to part lips only to kiss and make love.

He would try to eat her up, she to drain him. They didn’t try to conceal their plan to each other.

But even there, on the battlefield that had become their bed they would stray from one another, unable to tune their pace. Limbs were getting in the way and bones, and hearts too many. They cluttered each other. An elbow stabbed through her neck, her knee smacked a chin. She feared she had forgotten the relief of his body.

He caressed her like paper, afraid to crumple her, afraid to find the cutting edge. She licked him like a ruin, a crumbling statue she would need to clean before reconstructing.

Ashamed of the new-found clumsiness, they would cradle their pride in opposite corners of the ship, for days. She would be absorbed by the Melody Malone book, he would tirelessly work on his sonic. The consequences behind the completion of their respective works would prevent them from continuing and idleness would take over the ship and its inhabitants.

River would regain some strength, the Doctor just ebb.

The Old Girl would repeatedly blow a fuse to get them to work together on her and patch them up.

The awkwardness overcome, the cause for it would boomerang and knock them down back to their primary shifting and wanderings when everything was about the Ponds.

Crying didn’t even cross their mind.

Two time travelers in a box, without beginning or end, meant they could drift forever enshrouded in their grief.

They decided on a holiday. On Florana, the fairest of them all, before its waste.

None of them commented on the choice of a planet they both know would one day be ruined.

 

**Situation Unchanged: Still Fucked Up**

"Beaches of weaved gold" and "floating seas" -said the brochure- were the least required to alleviate their hearts.

They parked the TARDSI on a creamy sandbank by an artificial lake and took their time to choose appropriate clothing. While scurrying for summer dresses and straw hats, half naked in the wardrobe, they eyed the other’s body as if it was no longer the vessel of one’s love. River bit her inner cheek at the realisation and the ship nearly kicked them out in the open.

Star high and burning, breeze perfumed, water of the bluest blue that was lapping gently at the feet of the invisible TARDIS. The Doctor stepped out, hand in the pocket of his light brown trousers, the other holding the straw hat, in shirt-sleeves, the perfect image of a vacationing mathematics teacher who had valiantly not relinquished his working outfit. As he tasted the air, she closed the door, apologetically, and slipped out of her sandals into the white sand. Sand grits rubbing her skin as she sunk in. At first she had the urge to drop herself on the floor and just stay there, her back to the TARDIS, the smell of heated wood warping around her. And alone follow the patterns and trails of thoughts flitting about, catching one of them whenever she felt confident enough and following the thread until the knot came into view. And alone unknot it.

The Doctor was swaying around as if supported by the wind. His frame seemed lighter and strangely flowing. He stood erect, his floppy brown hair spread like fishnets, dark clothing against clear sky underlining his long silhouette. The smile began at his eyes, a glaze really, spreading down, distended the nostrils, reached the mouth and stretched the lips.

She let out a small hopeful sigh, that caught his attention and they stood there for minutes, River and the Doctor, very lonely and very silent, yet savouring the extemporaneous lightness of their mind at the moment.

No sooner had they shed their mourning skin and donned their light costume than the ground shook, grey-clad helmeted workers started popping up here and there on the beach, waving frantically at each other, being accosted by curious and sometimes mildly alarmed tourists.

The situation was apparently calling for their expertise and tiredly they stroll past the glistening waters, long the creamy beach, between the sunburnt holiday-makers. Oblivious and focused, their footsteps led them to the grey arch-gravity dam, high and solemn, lazy under the sun gleams, to all appearances undamaged.

They descended into darkness, exhibited their skills, showed off the psychic papers, absently, mechanically, and reached the core of the building.

Faded blue walls encompassing a sterile interior, the control room was a large semicircle, the arc created by high panel boards. Not so comfy chairs were facing large metal desks in line before the control panels. All around warning lights were flickering and every sensor seemed to have gone bonkers.

 _Here we go again_ , in a sole sigh the Doctor and River conceded.

Stepping inside the room with River by his side, the Doctor had removed his fly-eyed sunglasses with a long whistle. She could perceive the poorly concealed hint of excitement in his eyes.

There was a time she would have hopped on the bandwagon without so much as a second thought and join in the fun hazardous adventure all set to take her mind off everything. Not anymore. He needed to move on, wobble, run. She needed to halt.

_Later and alone._

She put on an amused face and strode along, keeping behind as he whipped out his sonic and started wobbling around, going on and on about pressure and – oooh, spring mechanical seal on the chamber doors, that could be a problem.

It was. The moment he confidently chirped the words a series of loud thwacks echoed through one of the corridors leading to the room, prompting the workers and engineers to rush to the door inside the control room with one cry of warning. One female humanoid had jumped in before her colleagues sealed the entrance. A gentle pad like dripping water was beginning to echo outside.

The Doctor silently opened his mouth, probably ready to apologise in some way or offer a ridiculous come-back line. River backed away from him in defeat and despondently shuffled her way to the panels. The look of the engineers, more incredulous than panicked before the Doctor’s manic fluorescent flailing and machine-gun explanations of a turn of event they had been trained to handle, could not lift her spirit up. There was a reason they had been allowed down here.

She was right. The door burst open and water flooded the room up to sixteen inches, knocking down the workers. Without hesitation she jumped to gather the floating bodies and secure them on tables, while the Doctor fiddled with the settings on a board.

He spun around, droplets spurting, and shouted to no one in particular, as if unaware of the state the remains of his assembly were in:

“I think we have a problem.”

“We have more than that. Half a dozen proper engineers, qualified for the situation, at present unconscious” she bit back. His silliness was something to marvel at, but not to admire, especially at such times.

He puckered an eyebrow at her uncooperativeness before replying, somewhat admonishing:

“No. It is manageable. I had a talk with them – didn’t you pay any attention? Trouble is, due to the mechanic doors, we’ll have to be quick and very coordinated.” He scrambled to reach a soaked chart pinned on a wall before studying it, scratching his right cheek with the ever gleaming screwdriver.

After a hesitation, he grabbed on a table nearby a communication device dry enough and whizzed when the comforting bluster of a man, probably another worker, came out in a crackle. He listened, attentively before rubbing his forehead and carried on, his excitement deflated.

“I think if I get my calculations right and you do exactly as I tell you, we will pull that off.”

She gritted her teeth and managed a tired smile. “What, save the world?”

He offered her an equally tired smirk. “I think so, dear.”

 

**Totally and royally fucked up**

 

Levers and brakes, handles and wheels. All around hands turning wildly on steamy dials. Water up to the knees and dripping incessantly from the ceiling.

There, for her to pull and to guard, while he was stirring and connecting, eyes frantically going through invisible sheets of paper defiled with equations and formulas. The lips were silently forming Os and 1s, brows furrowed, cheeks adorned by the faintest touch of red. The electric lights falling from the ceiling and equipment all around sculpted his face into a smooth expressive mask. In concentration, a little god.

She would look like a wreck compared to him, hair drenched, ruined shoes, glistening face, her thin dress was uncomfortably clinging to her upper body, the rim dipping into water letting the cool air wash her skin. Each paddle she was attempting toward him or one of the control panels resulted in a large spraying of water, clear probably, but cold as death. The numbing sensation in her calves was turning into an attack of dozens of tiny pins poking her flesh. She could have asked for a coat, wouldn’t because that was a part of her humanity she did not let him witness.

Their straw hats were floating and turning around, still sailing between the sheets of papers and pens. Sometimes gauche they would bump into each other, hooking on by a straw and waltzing together for half a second before disengaging themselves from each other’s arms. They would whirl away in opposite direction, swiftly escaping the dangers of shallow waters navigation. 

He would be shouting orders, without looking up from his sonic, entrenched in his quarters of water and buttons. Sometimes he would flash an encouraging smile in her direction. Tired and sorry.

Still.

“Pull this lever.”

“Pluck that here.”

“Hold this down and don’t, don’t let go. I’ll need to go there and…” The end of his sentence would be lost in an astounding clutter of wheels turning with difficulties above them.

Other engineers on other floors were attempting to fix the mess as well. The thought of all those minds buzzing, muscles stretching, anonymously, while the Doctor and she were doing their share of “saving the world” offered her some sort of comfort. She could blame herself about feeling disengaged from the situation. Except she wasn’t needed here, only to pull levers and do as he told. A job any companion, her parents should have done. Not her.

Never her.

***

River. Flowing, sliding from one corner to another. Good little soldier, with her dark helmet of curls. Bouncing slowly and spraying water across the room each time she turned to take a look at him, concerned, exhausted, but valiant. Her flimsy be-flowered dress had gone from turquoise cobalt to dark cobalt, grasping her curves as sin would. But she was blue with cold.

In every sense.

For weeks now he had tried to do something with the scraps of relationship they had left. Very hard he had been working on making up for these doomed instants, right after the Ponds’ departure, when he had been selfish to the point of tearing out of her cheerfulness and encouragement. That half manic smile of hers had not let her down since.

Every attention and caress she had demonstrated since was based on that initial false reading of his hearts. That he was _that_ selfish. That he had forgotten Amy’s love for Rory. That he had owned them. Well, he did, briefly. Because seeing them puff away felt like having air removed from his lungs, violently, unnaturally, indefinitely. And it hurt. Falling apart meant he would crash somewhere, in bits, usually in River’s embrace.

He had hoped this embrace would be mutual. She had remained straight until the last few weeks when communication, from mere words to kisses, had become hellish. Her patience was wearing thin and he read correctly, he thought, that her bouts of rebellion were a sentimental suicide; she was determined to push him out before he could witness her breakdown.

No word could erase the memory of his eyes before he uttered ‘your parents’. He knew. It had punched him in the face. _Her parents_. And she was the one who dragged him kicking and bawling in the TARDIS, who had sat him on the stairs and held him, for long, for life, it seemed.

He had squalled at her, but not letting her go. _Did you know about it River? Did you? Was it your biggest spoiler? Don’t you care about your mother? Why did you? Time can be rewritten, yes?_

_River!_

Because it had hurt. So much. And the fact he knew he would have to let them go and then her did not lessen the blow. She had been solid and constant, like death in her dark lacy dress. After he had calmed down, she had detached herself from him and slid to the console, silently. And it struck him:

_River, they were your parents._

_Sorry._

_Didn’t think._

_It doesn’t matter._ Rule One, River.

Worlds and ages ago, by a moon so golden he would have stepped on the stars to pick it for her. The wind was singing and they were drifting on the edge of sleep, while Jim was humming nearby, not even allowing night to disturb his five-day plan to erect a dam.

She was soft and confident in his arms. He felt whole and in possession of such power and agency, over his life. With River.

A whimper from his lap where she rested and she half snored: “You told me you would explain that first rule of yours. You liar.”

His smile was crooked. “Not tonight.”

Tonight he loved her so much he would ignore such constructed things as rules.

His smile grew tender.

“No rules. I’ll tell you about the Second Law instead.”

“What is the First Law?” She sniffled before snuggling closer.

“Spoilers.” He paused, making out her features in the dark. ”It prevails over the rules. Every time I say something like “On my life, she will be safe” I lie and I know it and you know it and your parents know it. I’m no hero. I will lie again and again, to protect you, to spare you. Why do I even bother to tell it then? Because what matters is now. At some point, I must have told you, and if I haven’t I am now telling you: whatever happens in the future, you have to remember I deeply, thoroughly, abjectly care about you, I trust you within an inch of my lives and I always catch you.”

She roared a glorious laughter that echoed in his ribs. A pace akin to his hearts’.

It took him ages to come back to her. Florana. 20th century. Lake District. In the control room, flowing and toiling River. Water everywhere and engineers woken up since long. Working by their sides.

_Oh, right._

They were having an adventure.

They were saving the world.

**Fucked up beyond any repair**

 

The water entries were all managed in a short time with the help of the engineers.

Slumping against the nearest solid surface, River let out a sigh of relief and exhaustion that did not escape the Doctor.

“Tired, Professor Song?”

 _Of course I’m exhausted, you idiot, and so are you_ , she soundlessly railed.

“Sweetie. I thought you had minions for that kind of job” escaped her mouth instead.

The quick scanning of the room in search of a dry something didn’t prevent her eyes from coming back to him fast enough to catch it, the flash of pain and recognition, engulfing his features, taking over the brow, the aisles of the nose, the corner of his mouth, his Adam’s apple.

She hadn’t meant to remind him of his lost companions. Yet everything would remind him of them.

He blinked, somber, and rubbed his hands together before combing his wet hair, plucking the suspenders, anything to avoid the implications of her outburst.

“Drop the convicted face.” She rolled her eyes before the masqueraded guilt.

His breathing was slow, contained to such an extent the hollow sound that escaped his mouth didn’t surprise her in any way.

“What?” He opened his hands before him, with an air of contrition tinged with provocation. “You want me to forget that most of the bad things that happened to them are my fault.”

He took a few strides away from her, following the curve of the room before turning back, a confident expression on the face, almost proud. She could slap him. Evidently he was persuaded he deserved every bit of grief he got.

“If it weren’t for me they would still be alive.”

River leaned heavily on one of the desk, arms folded, studying the water on the floor still flowing and billowing, lapping up at the ankles. She had nothing to answer. It was a childlike, vain, futile concern of his. On appearance only. A time traveler knew that, yes, a Doctorless world would sustain and exist with its Ponds, its little Melody even.

“They are not dead” she retorted, simply. Her limbs were aching and she could see him shiver, which indicated just how cold the room was. The engineers were still motioning around, purposely oblivious to the argument, in outfits much more appropriate than theirs. Everyone on this planet seemed more appropriate than them. A dam was built to last, a personnel hired to fix everything, holiday-makers sensible enough to keep a cool head. Some things are meant to be and she knew they were not meant to be together.

Some things need to be pushed and tried and skewed to fit together.

She was beginning to suspect even that they could not earn. That no matter how hard they tried they had reached a point where they were both too old, linear at last, to change. Earlier in their timeline, she had been too old, then he had been, she had been again, and within loops and junctions none of the pieces fell into place. The hope had remained all those years, buried in her mind, between the ‘Do I know that Man’ section and the ‘Remember Berlin’ department that when they would be timed correctly they would adjust to one another.

They did not. They were endlessly shape-shifting to fit one another’s hearts.

She accepted long ago her marriage would never near the likes of her parents’. She thought she had demonstrated multiple times she could hover at the height of devotion and love her mother and father had secured for each other. He even acknowledged it in his own selfish, irresponsible, infuriating manner.

He changed for her.

“We open the doors soon. A matter of minutes, really” claimed a worker. She snapped out her thoughts.

The Doctor was now walking –floundering really- up and down the room, in an attempt to occupy his limbs, after his frantic rescue mission. And babbling a blather of paradoxes and statues and Rose. River grunted soundlessly. They had been gesticulating in the cold for what seemed an eternity and yet he was still willing to move and converse. The process of surveying and working the panels and myriads of buttons had properly drained her. She wanted to drown herself in a bathtub.

“Of course they aren’t dead. And of course you would say that they always leave and sometimes I never see them again. But there’s always the possibility of it, the chance for me to see them one last time. Well, I don’t have it and they are locked away because of me.”

The conversation was only a rehash of a previous argument they had. Multiple times.

About how everything was different with the Ponds.

The details of these exchanges escaped her. Remained his behaviour, shifting glances and licked lips. How he tried each time to imply he would not recover from their loss. She knew he would. At some point she had been so worn out by his distress she tricked herself into believing he was deceiving her, wailing for her, to drive her out of her confinement, to force his affection on her. As if the only way he could express his love in a manner fitting for the context was by claiming his devotion to his Ponds. Not her.

How she longed for the egoism he had been allowed in that graveyard. For herself.

But she could not, could she?

Alone. Later. _Maybe._

**Mutually Assured Destruction**

The traps her mind was setting for her were far more dangerous than anything he could have devised.

“I’m not being childish.” He was harrowing himself. _How did he get there_ , she wondered. “I just need to understand I’m not useless. I knew the moment I offered you to travel with me that it would be like this, hard. _You_ locked up in your little armour of courage and loving devotion.”

The reality of him even considering there were wrongs on both sides took her by surprise. She could not believe this sudden growing up and looking outside of himself. She should have congratulated him. She felt hurt instead and barked.

“Then stop being so self-breast-beating. Bad things just happen; it’s not the Universe being unfair.”

“Yeah, and I was discovered to be selfish to the point of denying Amy and Rory the right to be together.”

A painful smile blossomed on his face.

“Thought I didn’t notice?”

She angrily began to worry the hem of her dress. She hadn’t wanted him to become aware of that sour note. It was nevertheless impossible for her to be proud of what she had attempted to do there, preventing him to… _Oh, she had been stronger than that at Demon’s Run._ When did she start shielding him so?

“How pleasing do you think it is?” he continued. “Good old Doctor, empty-headed in an empty box. See, useless!”

“Oh, stop it, you big man-chil…” she tried relapsing into their careless old married couple act.

He surprised her by skipping briskly toward her, features tense and marked. His knuckles shining and milky in the penumbra. Long hands, skimming fingers, gorgeous palms. He didn’t touch her though and she was painfully reminded of their inability to even screw each other to oblivion.

“No, River, you stop it. I am useless because of you.”

His eyes were anchored to her face and this frantic searching worried her. _What was he expecting to find in here?_ Surely something she never had. His eyelashes were still bearing tiny drops that would deposit gently on the cheek with each blink and his lips were dry from all the running of his tongue on them. His face appeared, inhuman, stunned in a marmoreal coldness.

“Because I can’t reach you. I can’t help you. I can’t heal you. Nothing can pass, you shut yourself down and I can’t see a crack. When I’m the one leading the assault, you need to do that, granted.” He squinted his eyes, probably travelling back to Utah. It was tempting to miss Utah and the assurance she was the adult one, ready to take a blow without a quaver, without a sweat or an eyelid lowered.

His voice rang, resonant and strong, as if he had sensed he would have to drag her back all the way from that blasted year of 1969.

”But here I’m trying to help.” He took hold of her face, carefully but firmly. His long, gorgeous, skimming hands.

Yet he had done it so many times to reassure Amy, Rory, all the others. Fishing for a connection.

Anger rose in her chest, jealousy and exasperation. She jostled him down to the floor. He landed on his back, in a splash and a cry as he hit the surface, training all the engineers’ eyes on him.  

“I’m not here to nurse you” she blustered at him. _How ludicrous_ , she thought, when all she was craving for was to be nursed.

“But…” He stuttered, hands suspended in mid-air, his elbows keeping him above the water. The genuine confusion in his eyes seemed to keep him from getting up and striking back.

“No, really, I am not capable of nursing you, now. Not physically, not mentally.”

 _Turn to me if you need distraction, challenge, love, threat even,_ she noted to herself. _That’s all I’m good for._

“Do not even hope for comfort right now. I’m not there yet.”

He got up, remarkably composed, trousers so drenched they were glistening under the electric light. A few engineers, busy by the screens, frowned at them. Of course the TARDIS would translate that. She shut her eyes in a futile attempt to contain her soaring fury.

“You lost me”, he cautioned her, edging close to her.

“Never. But _you_ did,” she shot back.” You never recovered since.”

So patient and tender was his gaze upon her she could have mellowed a little.

He seized her sides, arms around her in a vague attempt to hug her, which she ignored since he was also soaking her all over again. She pushed him away. Perhaps she was trying to get him angry and impatient. And unfair. Because she could deal with the young Doctor being unfair and cold. She could busy herself. This one was just being so amenable, so perceptive, so willing to see her hurt.

 _No_ , unfair to him. Willing to see she was hurting as much as him.

“I have a right to feel guilty, you know. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to be forgiven.” He let his hands fall to her elbows, resting in the crook, feeling her shivering flesh. He looked sorry, about the goose bumps, about the Silence, about her parents. He was exhausting her. “I have a responsibility toward them, and I know you don’t like me to use that word. But it is. I introduce them to worlds they cannot possibly understand. And they…” He hesitated, the tension in his jaws indication of a harsh decision about to be taken. He asserted calmly as if the words had a completely different sound to his ears. “I let them down. I locked them in the past. I’m supposed to teach them another way to live, not force them out of their everyday life.”

She stiffened, a breath caught in her throat. If he had wanted to light the fuse, he wouldn’t have acted differently. And he knew it, gaze frozen, fingertips barely touching her arms ready to fly up and stop the slap or thrust she would not fail to deliver.

He lifted his chin up and she went to pieces.

“Shut it! Their lives are not yours to lose. When you took them with you all those years ago, did you really think they were completely bewitched? They have a mind of their own, you know. Your hold on them is not that strong! They are not completely whisked away. What kind of life do you think they chose over yours? Boring life, adventureless life, a lesser life? Surely you don’t have that much confidence & faith in human nature if you think your intervention is necessary to make the world turn faster. “

For a split second, the thought of turning back crossed her mind. What she was about to say was foul, but he had not been there to witness the Ponds dressing the table for four, three years long, waiting together, each Christmas. And Amy’s deception and questioning of River. _Questioning her daughter._ Because he mattered, such a big place he took.And when he left, such a big hole.

She could stop. It was beginning to feel too much about her.

_Did we become too boring, River?_

She reeled before shrilling.

“What you offer in the end is perspective, never forget that! You don’t give magic candies out of a blue box. A boring life is made of all the little times your mind was closed to your imagination. Showing them space, you just banged open that door, preventing it to close for long! You just damage the lock, don’t you? And they can’t keep the door closed after that!”

He hurled her against the nearest control panel, a sharp angle sinking into her back muscles and sending brisk jolts of pain across her spine and she stopped. Hands on her shoulders, he pinched her to the walls, eyes set on hers.

The engineers just fled in panic, sending water everywhere and achieving to wet them wholly, again.

He was seething, pressured. It was brief but contained. She had meant the words to stab him.

“We’re not at Demon’s Run. This is not about giving it all to me, River. This is not about preventing me from making a mistake. This is about hurting me. You’re a watchdog. You don’t hurt me, River. Never on purpose. Not unless you are really hurt yourself. Not unless everything is falling apart.”

She flinched. Never in her long life had she experienced her world falling apart. Not even when her parents were taken by the Angels. What did it mean for her in the future?

She knew. She always thought she would be able to keep it together when the time would come for her to face a Doctor who doesn’t know her at all. And she feared more than anything that single glance he would cast at her. It would be blank.

Never, she had promised herself should she let him be his whole world. She was her parents’ daughter, yet not in this manner. He just had spoilt the end. He would be her whole world and she hated him for that.

 _Spoilers_ , she uttered, voice muted.

“Okay” He was keeping her at arm’s length, still scanning her face, still moistening his lips. The expectation in his face was surfacing, gradually.

“River, you choose, I do not shape you. They chose to follow me. I did not shape them. Never. You’re free, you know.”

She struggled against the panel to slide out of his grasp but his grip on her was firm.

“And I do not think an archaeologist’s life without me is boring.”

Her eyes halted on his face, vision blurred on the sides, dampened hair obscuring the view. Of course it was about her, all along. He was not the only one who could use the Ponds as a shield. Holding up a hand, she massaged her face, in shame crushing the features, as if she could mould for herself an expression adequate enough. He was still maintaining her against the panel, waiting for her to step in. Her chin dropped and her whole body sagged against his arms, then chest, defeated, where he settled her.

“Rule One”, she tentatively whispered, her last resort.

“Second Law”, he hushed her.

She blinked. The bastard. Second Law. He would deploy that one.

She sunk nevertheless, as though physics had commanded her to do so, in his arms. And gravity had her completely built in him. Her mind opened its doors and she felt him stiffen under the flow of emotions and angers she poured onto him. She dared not to look up and witness his receiving the news of her jealousies, her insecurities, her failures. She could have blushed out of shame if all of her blood had not fled to her guts to keep her warm.

They were silent and she waited, dreading his answer. From afar, she could hear the shouts of men, obviously calling for help. ‘Crazy people, tried to destroy the installation and then kill each other’ she could discern between the interferences of the still functioning radio.

He could have despised her. The room was awfully still as if breathing between two gusts at the heart of a storm and she could hear his steady respiration above her, blowing the hair from her forehead.

Timidly at first, demanding afterwards, it flooded her mind, his trust and maybe –but how could she know – love.

 _I’m here, hush_. On repeat. _I’ll catch you_. Always? _Always._ I let you in. _You let me in._ Not alone then. _It will not be alright. But it is okay_. Now… _It’s an eight._ We meet in the middle. When _? Spoilers._

The sound of her mental laugh sounded like rippling water, his like crackling fire. His boundless still mind, her flowing defined hearts.

 _Your hair is like an extension of your mind, it’s quite magnificent._ Shut up. _Can’t. No boundaries._ To your idiocy. _Among other things._

It was quite overwhelming and she needed to shut up her mind if she wanted to savour it completely. Because words were too small. She needed him infinite.

She opened larger and he sank deeper.

“I don’t want you to be a super-hero”, he silently sang.

“Please, shut up,” she begged. There was a chance for her to come to term with him being her world, only because perhaps, she realised, she could be his. _Not always_.

But the shouts and feet stampeding were getting closer; they broke apart. The hats were nowhere to be seen, probably at the bottom. He grabbed her hand, ready to run, she stumbled, unable to wake her sore muscles. He caught her with a smile, smug, and offered her a shoulder, wet and a bit frail, but _there, now_.

“Remember, I’ll always be there to catch you. You are allowed to consider the more literal meaning.”

How they ran out of the darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Military slang terms provided by Wikipedia and Collins Dictionary.
> 
> Information and quotes about Florana from TARDIS wikia. The rest is invention.
> 
> I have no idea how a dam really works on another planet. Sorry.


End file.
